The T5 5 Speed was originally manufactured by Borg Warner Automotive. The first T5 5 speeds were manufactured as far back as 1982 and are still being made at the time this page was written ( 2001 ). The T5 was the only American made standard transmission to span almost 20 years of production. Before the GM's Muncie 4 speed held that honor. Because of the large quantities of T5's produced, many parts are interchangeable, allowing one to create interesting 5 speed combinations. No other transmission allows this to be done quite this easy. There are now over 260 different T5 transmission assembly part numbers.
There are 2 basic kinds of T5 5 speeds. Non World Class ( NWC ) and World Class ( WC ). The T5 is an evolution of the Borg Warner SR4 4speed. The SR4 was a lightweight design, ball bearing and needle bearing counter gear box using bronze synchro rings. The T4 was an improvment of this design, using tapered input and output shaft bearings combined with a drawn cup roller bearing countergear. The T5 NWC was a T4 with an added 5th gear.
NWC T5's were issued in 1982. First applications were in S-10 Blazers. By 1983 Ford started using them in the Mustang, GM had them in the F body Camaro and Firebird Cars, AMC had them in the Eagle and Jeep lines. AMC dropped the T5 by 1985 to make room for cheaper Peugeot and Toyota boxes. By late 1985 the first WC boxes were used by Ford. The WC boxes had 1st, 2nd, and 3rd speed gears riding on roller bearings instead of solid shafts. The countergears saw an upgrade to tapered bearings. The bronze synchro rings were replaced by fiber lined rings and dual cone designed rings to improve ring surface area. GM started using WC boxes as early as 1988 in the Camaro / Firebird line but still kept NWC boxes in S-10's and Astro Vans. By the mid 1990's most of the GM T5 installations were all World Class.
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